It’s Time to Change that Mindset

Good afternoon wonderful people of God I trust that we are enjoying our weekend. I was almost not sharing anything today being a weekend, but I after speaking with a friend I felt the need to share a word.

Quite a number of people are falling into depression to the point of developing psychiatric problems owing to issues in their marriages; some people have become suicidal as a result of problems in their marriages and a handful of some have opted for the divorce option as a means of escape from marriage problems. Now, does it have to get so bad? Marriage is a very beautiful thing but I am sensing that the number of people who feel fulfilled in their marital experience is far less than those who don’t. Some walk out of the marriage when they have exhausted their endurance threshold, while some stay for fear of shame or thought of where they would possibly go when they leave and the thought of starting life all over again.

We then get to wonder how God would fold His hands and watch our marriages degenerate to this level or is this what God had in mind when He instituted marriage at the beginning?

I have experienced God so well in my marriage to know and appreciate those words when God said in Jeremiah 29:11 that “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” So if this is the mind of God for us, then we need to begin to search Him out for better marital experience. In Jeremiah 33:3 God says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” And that’s just want we will do in today’s post.

I titled today’s post “It’s Time to Change that Mindset,” because I believe that if we dear to change our approach towards some issues in our marriage we will get better results. When you do something in a particular way and you are not getting the desired result, it’s just simply wise to change approach and so I will list some of the things we need to change our mindset on in marriage.

• As a wife, never expect your husband to be perfect. As a matter of fact it is because he isn’t perfect and he needs help that God placed you in his life as his suitable helper or helpmeet. Accept him for his many shortfalls and pray for him always.

• As a wife, never try to change your spouse because you can’t and never will in self-effort. When you see traits in him that are not right, pray about it and allow God make the change for you. You will only get frustrated and depressed trying to change your spouse. You call it helping him, he calls it dominating and controlling. Always be reminded that your husband’s character is beyond your control, his spending habit, talking habit, eating habit, choice of friends, his relationship with others are all outside of your control. So take care of the things that are within your control and leave those things which are out of your control. It is within your control to fulfill your God given assignment in his life do that with all diligence seeking God’s approval and anticipating God’s reward. When you do this, the Lord will do for you what you cannot do for yourself because nothing is outside of His control and He alone can right the wrongs in the life of your husband and put your love back into him and he will love you beyond what you ever imagined. Remember Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

• When you are in a troubled marriage, expect very little from your spouse. Remove your expectations from your husband and place them on God. Have this approach: It is God who assigned you as a helper into your husband’s life and it is from Him that you should expect a reward for work done. Don’t whine if you don’t get gifts like you should from your husband, a time will come that you will have abundance of gifts; by the time God is turning the situation around in your favor. Don’t hold it against your husband if he is not yet treating you like he should, the Lord who sent you on assignment in his life will equip you with all that you need to succeed. Know the Lord who is your God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. If your husband is not fulfilling his responsibility as a husband by providing for his family, that is his problem and not yours. Malachi 2:13-14 and 1 Peter 3:7 says he risk his prayers not being answered by God, but as for you, you will never lack anything good because you put your hope in God. The Lord will always find a way to meet all your needs, if not through your husband; He has a million other ways to do that. But be rest assured that your needs will always be meet as long as you remain in Christ Jesus. Never let your husband’s action make you lose focus of God in your life or your assignment as a wife.

• In a troubled marriage, your husband will always say things or do thing that will hurt your feelings. But your husband’s actions and words will only affect you to the extent to which you let it. You can go on and reminisce or even meditate on your husband’s wrong doings and get depressed by them or you can choose you block it out of your thoughts. So in short your husband’s actions and words affect you to the extent to which you allow it. When you keep going over it again and again the end result is depression. But when you see him as a man needing help and you have been placed in his life by God to help him, you will pray for him more rather whine over his actions or inactions, noting that it is for that purpose that God made you his wife and God expects that you help rather than get hurt by his actions. Always keep it at the for front of your mind that whatever you do for your husband you do in obedience to the word of God and when you obey God’s word you receive God’s reward.

I so strongly believe that if we can re-orientate ourselves with these values then we will be having more happy and focused women in marriage that can face the challenges of their marriage headlong and still come out victorious. Depression and suicide thought over marital issues will be on the decline. And the beauty of it all is that at the end of the day our husbands will love us more than we imagined because we let God do the work for us that we could not do by ourselves.

Yes I have the men in mind too; by the special grace of God, in my next post we will deal with changing mindset for the men. So please just keep your fingers crossed, it’s going to be a very interesting one too.